


Undeserving

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Series: FFXIV Write 2019 [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Aymeric Whump, Canonical Character Death, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Gender-Neutral Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury, Other, Patch 3.0: Heavensward Spoilers, The Vault (Final Fantasy XIV) Spoilers, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 22:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20571788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: “Why do you run away from love?”





	Undeserving

**Author's Note:**

> For FFXIVWrite 2019!
> 
> Day 5 | Vault
> 
> Tumblr post here: https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/post/187536787679/ffxivwrite-2019-prompt-5-undeserving

Aymeric has seen many things he wishes to forget. He knows the smell of ash and scorched brick. He is familiar with death. He holds Halone’s hand every time he steps from Ishgard’s sanctified walls, breathing deeply of the freezing air and hoping each breath will not be his last. 

He has laid witness to martyrs and massacres at the hands of many a wyrm, but never that of innocent blood on the hands of knights he thought to be virtuous. 

Before him, a steward’s son bleeds out on the marble. “Pray, have mercy! Mercy, _please─”_

“A heretic demanding _mercy,”_ Ser Charibert spits and Aymeric has force himself to keep from panicking when he begins to feel blood wet his feet. “The Fury gave you Her blessing and you _squandered_ it in favor of laying with wyrms. She shall grant you no reprieve.”

And he is true to his word, grinning with glee every time a scream becomes an animal noise made of absolute agony. Aymeric, stripped out of his armor and regalia of Lord Commander, sits still as statue and very pointedly does not _breathe. _

Charibert is not one to be denied, as the welts encircling his wrists from his private stay in one of the many interrogation cells like to remind him. Everything aches, a terrible burning present in the socket of his left shoulder up into his neck and throughout his back. With both hands kept tightly to the back of a chair, he cannot check the joint for injury even if he could stand the sight of it. 

So he sits and he waits and he prays to a god that never comes. 

Instead, he gets the Warrior of Light, kneeling over him and pressing magic carefully into his wounds and doing something to his shoulder that makes him shout, throat shredded up enough it’s barely a rasp. They apologize and soothe him with quiet words and gentle aether. They don’t touch his him more than they have to after checking him for injury and treating him with a pinched expression and quiet rage. 

Aymeric very pointedly does not put very much pressure on his right leg even after being dressed best they can manage without damaging delicate and newly grown skin, a bone set incorrectly but healed over so they can get him out safely, and ignores how the Warrior jumps at shadows with their weapon ever-drawn. 

They make chase best they can, but they’re late. Always late. A step behind. Faltering. 

Aymeric isn’t sure what he expects when he calls after the Archbishop, his _father,_ and asks that he cease his machinations. The taste of blood in his mouth, maybe, but not the disdain he is treated with. Surely not what comes after in a flash of blinding light. 

His friend and steadfast ally dying before him, aether burning wild and bright throughout the wound that knocked him to the ground. A memory of musings shared over spiced wine late at night rouses him from his stupor enough to collapse at Haurchefant’s side. 

_“For every sacrifice someone makes for them, the less they feel he is worthy of such devotion. They believe that they are unfit to be held in confidence, someone undeserving of basic kindnesses. A waste.” _

_Aymeric scrubs a hand over his face, sighing. His voice is rough with sleep when he asks, “And what would you have of them?”_

_“A question,” Haurchefant answers. “One only and then I shall be satisfied.”_

_“Being?”_

_He pauses, mouth opening and closing when words struggle to make their way out past the knot that has taken up residence in his throat. Aymeric waits, patient and pensive, for his answer. When he speaks, it is with the reverence of prayer. _

_“Why do you run away from love?”_

And he knows, then, why Haurchefant had wanted to know them so intimately. He and the Warrior were more than friends but less than lovers, a juxtaposed couple of fools who weren’t honest enough with their wants to confess, and Aymeric is all out of tears to cry when his friend passes away on freezing marble before him. 

He is familiar with death, yes, but not that of a heart.

**Author's Note:**

> all in favor of giving aymeric de borel a hug say aye
> 
> xiv tunglr | https://ffxivimagines.tumblr.com/  
main | https://kiriami-sama.tumblr.com/  
main | https://twitter.com/flamingacekiri


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